Tell It To COACHIE

For those of you that don’t know, this season’s Amazing Race has a deaf guy on it. He’s racing with his mom and they are a good team. Of course, every time he’s interviewed, he says he wants to show the world that deaf people can do anything.

Okay. I was just wondering though? Are there large groups of people who think deaf people can’t do things? In my world, deafness seems to be a handicap that many many people cope with and overcome on a regular basis. His situation sort of reminds me of Charla, the little person on the Amazing Race who wanted to show the world that little people could do anything. I agree that footage of both of them shows that while some tasks are harder for them, they do find a way to complete them. And so, I will agree that they both have shown the world that their disabilities do not hold them back.

However Luke and Charla, if you want to be an example, then I think you’d better stay on the heroic side of the fence. Or was it your intention to show the world that deaf people can screw over their fellow competitors better than hearing people (even your mom seemed a little leery of the whole thing)? Just like Charla showed the world that little people will lie and act handicapped if they think it will get them special treatment?

Enough of this. What I need people, is a good book. All of the books I have read in 2009 have been complete downers, including the biography of Charles Schultz, A Thousand Splendid Suns, a fascinating yet revolting biography of Jesse James, and a book called The Billionaire’s Vinegar, which is sort of interesting but has no ending. Now I’m back to reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which everyone says is so awesome, but I just don’t get. I find it highly irritating that there is so much untranslated Spanish in it - at least The Yiddish Policeman’s Union had a glossary in the back. I think I went too long without reading it so now I’ll either have to start over, and I really don’t want to, or just hope it all comes together in the end. I had hoped to get to the bookstore on haircut day, but you heard how that turned out. Hopefully when I get to my parents’ house, everyone will be done with their Christmas present books and I can nab a couple for free.

Last November my sister Erin, the librarian, sent me an e-mail that said this:

Would your kids have any interest in this? Or are they already doing it?

http://www.the39clues.com

Since I am so very busy doing so many important things, I read the e-mail but didn’t click on the link. When she asked me about it later, I think I vaguely said I hadn’t had a chance to check it out, you know with the whole busy/important things thing going on. So she wisely took matters into her own hands and gave Aislinn the first book of the 39 clues series and a pack game cards for Christmas.

I was, I must admit, more than a little skeptical about the whole thing. There are going to be 10 books to read, and all these online games and puzzles, and trading cards and clues, etc., and I figured there was no way it would be done well. I figured the site would keep crashing or the books and games would be either really hard or much too easy or really boring. As it turns out, I was wrong - really wrong.

The first book is entertaining and, it shocks me to admit this, we are reading a chapter each night before bedtime. As a family. In the living room. As if we really have become prairie dwellers who don’t have a TV. The computer games are not only challenging, but they are actually fun, and the whole thing is full of little history tidbits that I’m sure the kiddies are learning in spite of themselves. Then again, they still think that they might somehow win the $100,000 prize, so it may be pure greed that keeps them interested, but that’s okay with me.

Here are a few more of other people’s lists:

10 Best Novels of the 20th Century according to the Modern Library Board:

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald*
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov*
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22*
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck*

Before this day I had never even heard of number 8. I think I did read The Dubliners when I found a copy of it on my parents’ bookshelf, but clearly my appreciation of James Joyce is lacking.

The 10 Best Novels of the 20th Century according to the “rival” Radcliffe Publishing Course:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee*
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Only 3 overlapped. Interesting isn’t it?

10 Best Novels of the 20th Century according to “readers”:

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

Weh? Clearly people who vote in reader surveys are a little bit nutty and a wee bit out of touch with reality (L. Ron Hubbard???).

Anyhoo, I’ve italicized the ones that I’ve read and starred the ones I’d read again. These lists tell me two things:

1. My high school summer spent reading Silas Marner, Moby Dick, Tess of the D’Ubervilles, and Crime and Punishment, were not only painful and boring, but didn’t even prepare me for the 21st century.

2. I need to knock out a few more of these books so I don’t seem like an idiot at parties. (Of course that’s a joke! No one is Missouri throws parties!)

Quod si non his tantus fructus ostenderetur, et si ex his studiis delectatio sola peteretur, tamen (ut opinor) hanc animi adversionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam iudicaretis. Nam ceterae neque temporum sunt neque aetatum omnium neque locorum: haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. - Cicero* (my favorite book quote)

Last year I began a list of “Books Read in 2007,” got caught up rereading The Once and Future King, set that aside and basically forgot to write down anything I read all summer, and then abandoned the list. In September, in a fit of I don’t know what - Missouri ennui?- I ordered 5 books from Barnes and Noble. As always, I ended up with this list based upon what books had won or were nominated for awards and were also available in paperback. Typically I follow a very strict regimen of alternating between fiction and nonfiction when I read, but in September, in a fit of I don’t know what - Missouri escapism? - I ordered these five fiction books. About halfway through the third one, I realized and regretted my error. I’m just not a big fan of fiction, because it almost always disappoints me. Behold:

1. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai. It won two awards and seemed promising, but meh, I didn’t really like it and I can’t even remember enough about it to give you a synopsis. It would never come to mind for me to recommend it. I’d rather reread Interpreter of Maladies.
2. The Echo Maker - Richard Powers. This won the National Book Award, and actually for the first 4/5 is very interesting, about a guy who wakes up from a coma and remembers everything about his life, except that he is convinced that his sister is an imposter. But the end of the book just falls apart, with characters doing things that are, well there’s no other way to put this, out of character. Usually, I’m sad to get to the end of a good book, but in this case I was just annoyed by the end and wanted it to be over.
3. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country - Ken Kalfus. A National Book Award Finalist about a married couple who each thinks the other has died on September 11th and is happy about it. It turns out they both survive and then their lives fall apart. I hated it. Maybe I’ll never be ready for a comedy about the aftermath of September 11th, or maybe I’m just too unsophisticated to appreciate satire. Either way, I found this book depressing and I don’t think the time will ever come when I want to read an entire book about people treating each other like crap, even if it’s supposed to be funny.
4. Eat the Document - Dana Spiotta. It follows the lives of two people who accidentally (actually it wasn’t an accident at all, it turns out they knew someone was in the building that they were about to blow up) killed someone during their radical 60s days and then were on the run for 30 years or something. I don’t think this was nominated for any awards. I think I bought it because it was recommended on a page with one of the other books and because it only cost $4.48 for the hardback version. Once again, meh. I guess if you are interested in the whole counterculture scene you might like it, but I’m not really much of an anarchist, so I found the whole thing a bit boring and pointless.
5. The Zero - Jess Walter. This one is also about the aftermath of September 11th, and starts out with the main character waking up after trying to kill himself. Apparently he is a cop who was working at ground zero, but now he blacks out all the time and each time he wakes up he is somewhere different, he can’t remember how he got there or what he’s supposed to be doing and he’s basically carrying on two separate lives, one of which he knows nothing about. I guess I’d recommend this book, except the reader doesn’t get to know what’s going on either, and I find that a little annoying. Plus his alter ego seems to be a complete psycho. And the ending is a bit upsetting.

After working my way through all of these disappointing books, I didn’t know where to turn next. Fortunately, during the fall we watched the movies Capote and Infamous in quick succession. Inspired by this, the HP gave me two Truman Capote books for my birthday. I read one of them, Summer Crossing, before the end of 2007. It wasn’t good plotwise, and completely falls apart at the end, but it was still enjoyable because it was short and because he’s such a great writer (a great writer who never intended to publish this, because he knew it wasn’t good), and because I occasionally in my head I read it as if it was narrated by the HP doing his best Truman Capote impression or by Fido from Olive the Other Reindeer.

It’s always the ending isn’t it? No one really knows how to wrap things up, and maybe that is why I find fiction so disappointing.

I don’t really know how to wrap up this post either, except to say that so far 2008 has been much better for books. I plan to bore you with that list shortly.

Consider yourself warned.

*Though, even if there were no such great advantage to be reaped from it, and if it were only pleasure that is sought from these books, still I imagine you would consider it a most reasonable and liberal employment of the mind: for other occupations are not suited to every time, nor to every age or place; but books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in travel, and in the country - Cicero

Yeah, yeah.

Honestly, what’s better than a post that leads off with modified Milli Vanilli lyrics? Uh, NOTHING.

Anyway, I have the beginning of a post filed away but I couldn’t finish it. Why not? Why that would be because of the “snow day” which was actually a “bit of ice day” which was so minor that the HP successfully took the kiddies to school only to be met in the parking lot by the principal who said something along the lines of “Uh, yeah, that noisy, flashy rectangular thing in your house? You can use that to find out when school is cancelled.”

So I will leave you in suspense until tomorrow regarding the contents of the upcoming post (and I recommend that you sleep soundly, because it is barely interesting and not at all revelatory) but I will provide you with the following two little items:

1. Remember the little post about Joshua attacking our computer? Well, we have begun calling our Tivo “Joshua,” because it keeps taking over the TV and recording things without asking. When Tivo first came out, people would joke that just because you asked it to tape one episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” suddenly all of the Tivo suggestions were gay porn. Ours is even creepier. A few days ago, I finished reading James Tiptree, Jr. - The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. She was a sci-fi writer who used a male psuedonym to get published in the male-dominated sci-fi world of the 60s (I chose the book, as I always do, based on the fact that it won an award, not because I am well-versed in the sci-fi world of the 60s, but I will tell you most enthusiastically that it was an awesome book). At one point she becomes very interested in Star Trek and even writes a teleplay for it, but decides not to submit it. I, unlike certain people who may have married into my family, am not a watcher or fan of Star Trek. Yet Joshua, for no apparent reason, recently recorded two episodes of Star Trek. Is there a probable explanation for this other than a plot for a 2008 sci-fi book? How did he know what I was reading?

2. I feel bad about Heath Ledger.

So there you have it people. Since Lauren had a stomach bug this weekend and since I am never actually allowed to be alone, I imagine Aislinn will wake up puking tomorrow. If by some miracle she does not, I’ll see you then.